The Seeing Stone
by The Dunadan Project
Summary: A Seeing Stone lying on the bottom of a river tells its tale, which ends with the Kinstrife in the kingdom of Gondor.


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The Seeing Stone

as edited and transmitted by Finch

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For Soledad, because of her story The Dying Stone

This tale is part of the Dúnadan Project. Rating is for some disturbing imagery.

I am a stone resting in a river, dreaming of bygone days. The waters ripple over me but cannot move me, for I am too heavy. Fishes and other dwellers of the green depths pass me by, for they cannot eat me and I provide no shelter. Sometimes, one draws near to stare at me with bulging eyes. But I do not yield my secrets to creatures that could not even name what they saw if they had speech: a smooth, dark orb with a fiery heart, unchanged by the streams of time.

Still, I hold memories. I recall the hands of my maker, with long fingers, slender but strong, a spirit of fire with a touch of passion to kindle my flame. Of an old and deathless race he was, and I remember his face, pale and fair, with eyes like lances and framed by raven-dark hair. It lives on in my burning heart, and whoever sways enough power of mind and spirit to master me can behold it - or could, if I were not lost to eyes that know. One of seven brethren he made me, under the Father Stone, the first of all. And one of seven brethren gazed into me when I was newly wrought, and through me he spoke to the other sons of his father. But they all rebelled and departed, never to return, and I know their fate was dark. 

If I am moist it is because I am ever touched by running water and not because I weep. Stones do not shed tears.

We were left behind, my brethren and I, but one day we were gathered and carried to a white ship with well-woven sails. On the West wind it sped to a great island in the wild waters of the Sea, a star* fallen from the skies and turned into rock and fertile soil. And in the centre rose a pillar of heaven, a steep mountain with a heart of flame like mine, though far more dangerous: untamed and untameable, not made by any creature's hand. The race of Men living on this isle was great, and glorious were their works: tall ships, lofty halls, towers with soaring spires. And many other images of I preserve from the years on that isle, for many gazed into my brethren and me to watch the wide world and its wonders. Far abroad they roamed, and a day came when my heart seemed to hold all there was to see. 

But my eye had not yet drunk its fill of Man's pride and folly. This was a race of mortals. They hid their tombs in low valleys, but they could not hide themselves from death, and they became greedy for more life. I am a stone, I fail to grasp such things, but what my brethren and I see we reveal - and seeing stones cannot lie. What we saw was, that tempted by lies and worthless promises of life prolonged, the Men of this island fell from high, building a pointless temple to an old, false spirit and sending up the black vapours of human sacrifice to cloud the weeping heavens. But as the last King of the Fallen Star arose to rip lasting life from those unable to grant it to him, the smoke eagles of the Lord of the Breath of Arda flew about the mountain of fire**, and its fiery core exploded. 

If I am moist it is because I am ever touched by running water and not because I weep. Stones do not shed tears.

The isle sank into towering waves, yet my brethren and I did not perish. Beneath a bleeding sky seven storm-blown ships with ragged sails carried us to further shores, and there a king and his sons gave each of us a place of his own. A city they built in their new, great realm, with a mighty bridge across the same river that embraces me now. And beside the bridge they built a dome with a tower, and in the topmost chamber of that tower they put me on a pedestal, chief among my brethren. There, I beheld the King and his sons and their long-lived allies, waging war against the old, false spirit under skies darkened with fumes from an untamed mountain. When the long labours of war at last delivered peace it was at a price, and the pride and folly of Man robbed the new age of its brightness in the hour of its birth. 

King followed king in the realm where I rested on my pedestal, and all gazed into me to let my roving eye reveal whence their friends and foes would come. If not all ruled well and if some brought woe it was for lack of wisdom, not for any falsehood in my fiery heart, for a seeing stone does not lie. But many of the kings were great and glorious and their people noble and valiant; and if the glory faded and strife and evil crept into the heart of the realm, such was ever the way of the world. I am a stone and cannot grasp such things, but my brethren and I have learned to know that it is. 

If I am moist it is because I am ever touched by running water and not because I weep. Stones do not shed tears.

A king came whose son and heir married the daughter of a lesser people, and she followed him home abandoning her kin and her childhood name. She gazed into me once, and the image she left in my glowing heart was that of a woman, wife and mother, no more, no less. I saw that she loved like other women, wives and mothers, yet she was the daughter of a lesser people and her son the child of a lesser mother. His face I preserved as well, a handsome countenance proud enough to grace a king, with his mother's fearless northern spirit shining from his eye. Whoever would wrest it from my memory would deem him more, not less, for boasting such an ancestry, and think him well crowned. Alas, who will, now that I am lost? 

In those bygone days there were men who saw less clearly than did I, who am a stone. I fail to grasp such things, for shorter or longer, to me the life of any mortal is but a ripple in the river of time. Yet one of these men arose to thrust the son of a lesser mother from his rightful heritage, and the eye of my brother in the Watchtower showed me that many followed his lead. The King opposed them to the end of his strength, but at last they besieged him in his city on the banks of my great river, and food grew less, and children starved for the pride and folly of others, human sacrifices of a different kind.

If I am moist it is because I am ever touched by running water and not because I weep. Stones do not shed tears.

No victory or peace was bought, though, not even at this price. When the minds and the bodies of the besieged grew feeble enough to feed on their fellow men, women and children, the rebels conquered and infested the city. Blood ran in the streets and fire bloomed from the torched buildings, and again the heavens were hung with black vapours. The King's last faithful counsellor standing in the topmost chamber of the Tower of the Dome did not need to gaze into my blazing heart to see the flames leap, and he grabbed me and hurried down the stairs to save himself and me.

Down and down he raced while the fire ate itself a way up, ever further down, but the steps were many and the tower was too tall in its pride. Before he could reach the bottom its base crumbled and it broke and toppled, tumbling into the river with a great hiss. The counsellor never lived to see the clouds of steam billowing from the surface of the stream; the image I hold is of a face no longer stern and wise, but coughing, gasping for breath and suffocated by smoke. And I fell from his clutching hands and plunged into the water and sank, for I am heavy. Down to the bottom I went, a smooth dark orb with a heart of fire. And there I rest, embraced by waters. 

What happened to the King I cannot tell; perhaps he fled, perhaps he perished. And if he fled, perhaps he regained his kingdom and perhaps it prospered ever after, but probably it did not. For the ways of the world will not change as long as it lasts, and after each respite new shadows will grow. Me, they shall cloud no more. Where my brethren are I do not know, nor do I care; though I am a seeing stone, I have seen my last. 

If I am moist it is because I am ever touched by running water and not because I weep. Stones do not weep, even if their hearts are not made of stone but of fire. But I am forgotten, lost in the river of time, and in the dim green depths of these waters I am blind, as with tears. 

*The isle of Númenor was shaped like a five-pointed star.

**Or, in more prosaic terms, the fumaroles often seen before a volcanic explosion.

The text to go with this tale: "At last he [king Eldacar of Gondor] was besieged in Osgiliath, and held it long, until hunger and the greater forces of the rebels drove him out, leaving the city in flames. In that siege and burning of the Tower of the Dome of Osgiliath was destroyed, and the _palantír _was lost in the waters." LotR, Appendix A, (iv) Gondor and the heirs of Anárion. 


End file.
